The longtime supervisor of the FBI squad investigating the Gambino crime family has been whacked - by his bosses, the Daily News has learned.

Supervisory special agent Phil Scala, one of the most respected investigators in the metropolitan area, reached the mandatory retirement age of 57 last year and was granted a six-month extension to stay on the job.

Scala wanted to extend for another six months, but the suits in Washington refused and he was ordered to clean out his office late last week.

FBI spokesman James Margolin confirmed Scala's retirement but declined to comment further.

Sources said Scala wanted to stay on, especially on the heels of last month's massive takedown of 62 members and associates of the crime family, including the boss, underboss and consigliere, which he coordinated from the FBI command center in lower Manhattan.

"This is the way they treat somebody they like," said a source loyal to Scala. "He was led to believe the request was going to be approved."

For the past two decades, Scala and legendary Gambino-buster Bruce Mouw - who brought the late John Gotti to justice - were the only supervisors of the vaunted squad.

"Guys like Phil want to stay because they really make a contribution," Mouw said Thursday. "He knew all the names and places. You can't keep tabs on the players with a scorecard."

Sources said FBI Assistant Director Mark Mershon had backed Scala's extension, but headquarters want to end the practice of agents staying longer than six months past their 57th birthday.

"His in-depth understanding of organized crime will be difficult to replace," said Thomas Seigel, the former chief of Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's organized crime section.

Another source said Scala's expertise would be particularly missed in the next critical stage of the Gambino racketeering case as some defendants may defect from the Mafia.

Scala, a 29-year veteran of the FBI, was also a longtime member of the bureau's SWAT team.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime...to_pasture.html

This ain't 'The Sopranos.' This is real f- - -ing life."
Those were the words said by bodybuilder-turned-reputed mob enforcer Vincent Filipelli to an undercover New Jersey state trooper in the parking lot of a South Philly gentleman's club in May 2006.

"Money's turned in to him, he turns the money to me, my money's turned in to my people," Filipelli continued, according to the transcript of the undercover taped conversation.

Filipelli, 54, of Cherry Hill, pleaded guilty last year to a one-count indictment charging him with interstate travel in aid of gambling for threatening the undercover trooper - who he thought owed a sports gambling debt.

Yesterday, in U.S. District Court in Camden, Filipelli was expected to be sentenced. After a full-day hearing, Judge Noel L. Hillman continued sentencing to Wednesday.

Dressed in an olive-green jumpsuit, his legs shackled, Filipelli, a balding man with a toothy grin, gave a thumbs-up to supporters - who numbered 25 in the morning - when he first entered the courtroom.

Among his character witnesses were a priest, a physical-fitness trainer and a friend and a neighbor who both consider him to be a good role model for kids.

The charge against Filipelli stems from the May 25, 2006, meeting when he traveled from New Jersey to the parking lot of the Crazy Horse Too gentlemen's club on South Columbus Boulevard.

There, he met with two men who, unbeknownst to him, were undercover New Jersey state troopers. He thought one of the men owed a $13,000 gambling debt.

According to the transcript of the taped conversation, Filipelli told the undercoverofficer: "I'll come to your house, I'll hunt you down until I'm paid. I'll come in here and snatch you right out of this f- - -in' place. I don't give a f- - - because that's what my job is to do."

Yesterday in court, four friends testified that Filipelli is not a threat to society.

John Stabeno, a Roman Catholic priest who now runs a halfway house helping people with drug and alcohol addiction, said Filipelli is a "friendly, good man."

When asked under cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven D'Aguanno how he would hold Filipelli responsible for his crime, Stabeno said, "Hopefully, that he can change . . . make better decisions in the future."

When pressed on the question, Stabeno instead blurted out his thoughts about cops and undercover work.

A person who makes a bad decision, he said, is "a police officer who's going to uphold the law, trying to bait someone to break it."

Hearing that, Filipelli's supporters in the gallery chuckled and clapped.

Michael Monforto, Filipelli's friend of 25 years, testified that he had previously invited Filipelli - a former Mr. America and Mr. Universe competitor - to a Christmas bazaar he held "for mentally and physically challenged kids in the area."

Filipelli would show them photos and play with the kids, Monforto said.

Neighbor Melanie Singer described Filipelli "like a Fred Flintstone kind of guy," with a loud voice, not an intimidating one.

Filipelli previously served about four years in prison on a federal racketeering charge in connection with his involvement in Philadelphia's La Cosa Nostra. He had worked as a mob enforcer for former crime boss, John Stanfa. In 1998, he got out of prison and was sent to a halfway house on supervised release.

D'Aguanno, the prosecutor, argued yesterday that once someone is part of La Cosa Nostra, he's always part of it. He contended that Filipelli's 2006 debt collection at the Crazy Horse Too was part of his continuing work with the South Philly mob.

As such, he recommended to the judge that Filipelli be sentenced to 63 to 78 months in federal prison, an upward departure from the expected guidelines.

D'Aguanno pointed to a July 1998 meeting Filipelli had with Joey Merlino - once Stanfa's rival - as an example of Filipelli's attempts to work for the mob after he got out of prison.

Defense attorney Donald Manno, however, argued to the court that Filipelli was done with organized crime in 1994. He asked the judge to consider Filipelli's guilty plea as an acceptance of responsibility, and requested a downward departure from the guidelines.

He contended that the 1998 meeting with Merlino was so Filipelli could get out of a $10,000 debt he owed before going into prison, and was not an attempt to return to organized crime.

He also argued that the 2006 Crazy Horse Too meeting was simply a collection for a bookmaker who had no ties to the mob.

At the end of yesterday's all-day hearing, Filipelli was given an opportunity to speak.

"I'm totally wrong, your Honor. I made a mistake," he said. He said he had promised his sister he "will never be in trouble again," and was now making the same promise to the court. *

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20...ht_on_tape.html

his lifetime, former Mafia boss Joseph Massino was involved in at least one deal involving money and laundering that was perfectly legal - and someone still got victimized.

Today, Massino is a mob rat hiding in the Bureau of Prisons' witness protection program. And among the victims left in the wake of the treacherous ex-boss of the Bonanno crime family is a hardworking small businessman named Gary Lehman.

Eight years ago, Lehman bought G&J Launderette, a legitimate business in a building Massino owned at 60-37 Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood. He forked over $6,979 to Massino as a security deposit for rent and water usage.

Every month, Massino's wife, Josephine, stopped by to pick up the rent check, and Lehman met her husband occasionally when he stopped by an Italian coffee shop next door.

"Regardless of what was printed about him, they were nice people," Lehman, 59, said.

But it all came crashing down for Massino in the summer of 2004 after a federal jury convicted him of racketeering and ordering seven murders. The jury also ordered him to give $10.4 million to the feds, plus his CasaBlanca restaurant on Eliot Ave. and other real estate properties, including the building where the launderette is located.

Last year, the U.S. Marshals Service sold the building, and thus began Lehman's struggle to recover his deposit.

"I don't know if Massino has the money, his wife, or the marshals," he said.

Not one to give up easily, Lehman filed a summons in Queens Small Claims Court, then in Queens Supreme Court and recently in Brooklyn Federal Court.

An assistant U.S. attorney is representing the government, but it has been difficult for Lehman to find a lawyer willing to handle a federal case involving such a paltry sum of money.

Fernando Arias, an attorney in Jackson Heights, is trying to help. Last week, U.S. Magistrate Cheryl Pollack ordered both sides to work out a settlement in 90 days.

Lehman "doesn't have any issue with the Massinos. His only issue is the return of the deposit," Arias told the Daily News.

As for Lehman, he wasn't interested in Massino then and he isn't now.

"I'm a regular guy, and I didn't buy the business to meet him," he said


http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/quee...is_6g_depo.html

Hey Chopper, no posts from you in this thread a while?

Ive Been Busy mate

Italian police arrested 21 alleged Cosa Nostra bagmen Monday, amid signs mob victims are actually rebelling.

The arrests were believed to be the first time police have apprehended such a large group of alleged crime syndicate operatives based on the word of the people on which they had been preying, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Informants also played a major role in the arrests, ANSA reported.

A joint statement issued by two anti-mob groups credited the cooperation of business people.

In a bid to dent the Mafia's control, the Sicilian branch of the industrial employees union has vowed to eject any members paying for protection.

The federation has been contacting businessmen mentioned in a log book seized during the arrest last November of reputed Cosa Nostra chief Salvatore Lo Piccolo.

Businesses now have to choose between going to the police or being thrown out of the federation, ANSA reported.


http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/03/17/italy_conducts_mobster_sweep/3514/

When Michael "Mickey" Marcello visited his half-brother, Chicago mob boss James Marcello, in prison in 2003, the men talked about the possibility that Michael Marcello would get locked up too.

Michael Marcello told his brother he wasn't worried.


"What are they going to do, give me two f------ years?" he asked, in a secret recording the FBI made of the visit.

Michael Marcello was off -- by more than 6 years, he learned Tuesday.

Michael Marcello, 57, received 8 1/2 years in prison, just moments after he wiped away tears while hearing his son and stepson tell the judge how much they loved him. He's the first to be sentenced in the Family Secrets mob case.

Michael Marcello ran a lucrative video poker machine operation in the western suburbs and carried out his half-brother's orders while James Marcello was in prison, authorities say.

"Jimmy is the kind of guy who puts targets of the backs of people," the late federal prosecutor Mitch Mars said of James Marcello in 2005.

"Mickey is dangerous because he communicates Jimmy's wishes."

James Marcello was convicted at trial in September in the Family Secrets case. Michael Marcello pleaded guilty in June but did not cooperate against his brother.

Federal prosecutor T. Markus Funk conceded that Michael Marcello was not the worst of the worst Outfit members, but noted the comparison is relative.

"When you're talking about the Chicago Outfit, you're talking about a pretty grim and evil bunch," Funk said.

Michael Marcello, who worked for the Chicago Sun-Times as a truck driver from 1986 to 1995, apologized for his crimes and said he had nobody to blame but himself.

"I embarrassed myself and my family," he said.

U.S. District Judge James Zagel sentenced him to nearly the maximum under the advisory sentencing guidelines.

Zagel suggested that Michael Marcello was maybe "too good of a brother" to James Marcello.

"I think the lesson that you can derive from this . . . is that even when you talk about friends and family, limits have to be drawn," Zagel said.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/mob/838098,CST-NWS-mob12.article

BOSTON, MA - A former Medford man was convicted yesterday, in U.S. District Court
of conspiracy to possess cocaine and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
United States Attorney Michael J. Sullivan and Warren T. Bamford, Special Agent in
Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation - New England Division, announced that
ROBERT C. LUISI, age 46, formerly of Medford, was convicted by a jury sitting before U.S.
District Judge William G. Young of drug charges.
Evidence presented during the nine-day trial proved that LUISI was a Capo Regime, or
lieutenant, in the Philadelphia Family of La Cosa Nostra, commonly known as the mafia, and
that he and his crew operated in the Boston area. An undercover FBI agent successfully
infiltrated LUISI’S crew and recorded numerous conversations relating to illegal activity
including principally sales of cocaine. Recordings played for the jury evidenced LUISI
orchestrating drug sales. LUISI was convicted of conspiracy to distribute cocaine during the
period February 1999 through June 28, 1999 and distribution of cocaine on April 30 and June 3,
1999. In 2002, LUISI was tried and convicted on these same charges. The United States Court
of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed that conviction and ordered a new trial.
LUISI faces a mandatory minimum term of 10 years' imprisonment up to a maximum of
life imprisonment on the conspiracy charge and a maximum of 20 years' imprisonment on the
distribution charges, to be followed by 5 years of supervised release. Judge Young scheduled
sentencing for May 8, 2008.
U.S. Attorney Sullivan said, “LUISI’S conviction is the direct result of outstanding work
by the F.B.I. in investigating this case, both in the District of Massachusetts and in Philadelphia.
The case should serve as a cautionary tale for any organized crime groups that might be tempted
to test the waters in Massachusetts. The consequences will be severe.”


http://boston.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel08/cocainedist031408.pdf

Vincent Filipelli of Cherry Hill, who more than a decade ago was a bodyguard and driver for a leader of Philadelphia's organized crime family, was sentenced Wednesday to 66 months in federal prison.


Filipelli had pleaded guilty to interstate travel in aid of racketeering, an offense that covered his admission that he told a man in Philadelphia he would "put him in the hospital for a year" if he did not pay a $10,000 illegal sports gambling bet.

The target of the threat was an undercover New Jersey State Police detective.

While his sentencing was pending in U.S. District Court, Filipelli was indicted by a state grand jury in November on charges of running a gambling Web site and possession of illegal steroids and weapons. The weapons and steroids were found during a raid at Filipelli's house.

The gambling charges are pending in state court.

Wednesday's sentencing by U.S. District Judge Noel Hillman followed more than 12 hours of legal argument over two days from defense attorney Donald F. Manno and Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven D'Aguanno.

Manno sought a lighter sentence because Filipelli had pleaded guilty. D'Aguanno wanted more time because of Filipelli's admitted connection to La Cosa Nostra.

Filipelli has been in custody since his arrest on federal charges in October 2006.

At a bail hearing following that arrest, friends and neighbors on Filipelli's block of West New York Avenue in Erlton almost filled a courtroom in U.S. District Court, offering support and pledging money to meet his bail.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/NEWS01/803200402/1006

Filipelli is an idiot

Threatining a undercover agent is never a smart move.

It's like what Nick Carimandi did back in the 80s, which caused him to flip out of fear of Nicky Scarfo. Filipelli will be back on the streets soon enough, Ligambi likes him.

Banished from Gambino crime family activities by his infamous brothers John and Gene - and relegated to being a house-husband while his wife brought home the money - Vincent Gotti's crime career was mired in drug abuse and petty arrests.

But times have changed, mostly for the worse for the Gambinos, and Vincent Gotti has finally hit the big time, sort of.

Six years ago, after the death of his boss brother John - and just before he turned 50 - Vincent, the black sheep of the Gotti family, finally became a Mafia soldier, authorities say.

The career surge came with a burgeoning loansharking business and the right to order at least one murder, the feds said.

Unfortunately, finally getting on the mob radar meant he got caught up in the recent massive indictment that Brooklyn federal prosecutors say has nearly decimated the Gambinos.

"Because the crimes for which [Vincent] Gotti has been charged constitute crimes of violence and narcotics offenses for which the maximum term of imprisonment is life," Assistant U.S. Attorney Evan Norris argued in court papers, prosecutors asked that he be jailed without bail.

Magistrate Robert Levy and Federal Judge Jack Weinstein denied him bail this month in hearings that divulged many new details about this virtually forgotten Gotti.

"I can't sleep," Gotti told Weinstein last week in court after the judge asked if he was being treated well at the Metropolitan Detention Center.

Defense lawyer Scott Leemon jumped in, saying that some inmates in the prison dormitory are up until 3 a.m.

The judge chuckled.

"It might be a question of age," Weinstein said. "I'm sure at one time he could have slept through that."

Vincent Gotti's rap sheet starts in 1973, when he pleaded guilty to petty larceny. Over the next two decades, he was collared for robbery, criminal impersonation and indicted in 1980 for selling cocaine.

During this time he was also abusing drugs himself, leading to the exile imposed by older brothers John and Gene.

Law enforcement sources said Vincent Gotti was banned from John Gotti's social club scene, the Ravenite in Little Italy and the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club in Ozone Park, Queens.

Although John Gotti did not disapprove of drug dealing and Gene Gotti remains in prison for heroin trafficking, Mafia rules prohibit drug use.

"John abhorred drug users," a source said. "Not for moral reasons, but for security reasons. The security of the family."

Former FBI agent George Gabriel summed up Vincent Gotti's situation in a 1992 interview with his parole officer: "Vincent has no place within the family organization. He was chased away as an embarrassment due to the stupid things he has done in the past," he said in a document in the parole file.

Even behind prison walls, though, the surname Gotti still carried some weight.

A prison superintendent at the Queensboro Correctional Facility was demoted for asking Vincent to "pull strings" with executives at a construction company about a prison project, the Albany Times Union reported.

Vincent Gotti was once a shop steward in Local 23 of a construction union, but doesn't appear to have worked for some time except for a job in a phone store.

His lawyer described Vincent in court as a "homemaker" whose wife of 24 years, Carmela, brings home the bacon from her job at a subsidiary of the New York Stock Exchange.

The Gottis reside in a modest home in Hewlett, L.I., with their daughter, 16, and a son, 10.

The bail motion states that Vincent coaches his son's baseball team, "never misses his daughter's softball games" and is "very active" in a charity called Bless the Kids Foundation.

The foundation's Web site lists an address in Ozone Park; the phone number is disconnected.

John Gotti died of throat cancer in prison in June 2002. Five months later, with eldest brother Peter Gotti running the Gambinos, Vincent was inducted into the family.

Prosecutors allege Vincent has gotten into loansharking and ordered the murder of Howard Beach bagel store owner Angelo Mugnolo in 2003.

A former law enforcement official said he was "surprised" to learn of Vincent Gotti's emergence from obscurity. "I guess it's the passing of years and the [Gambino] ranks have gotten thinner," the official offered as an explanation

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime...e_i.html?page=1

Police from Thailand´s Department of Special Investigation have swooped on a suspected member of the ´Bandidos´ motorcycle gang, which is accused of involvement in drug dealing money laundering, and dubious land practices on the island of Koh Samui.

According to the Bangkok Post, Police Colonel Pravuth Wongsinil, chief of the consumer and environment protection unit named the suspect as 32-year-old British national Lauren Daniel James Fray, the owner of owner of Sabai Thani Property Co.

“Mr Fray entered Thailand as a tourist and used loopholes in Thai laws to buy and sell public land and real estate with the assistance of Thai lawyers,” he said.

http://www.property-report.com/aprarchives.php?id=1315&date=180308

Six men alleged to be leaders among the Montreal Mafia have decided to proceed with a trial on several charges related to Project Colisée.

All six, including Nicolo Rizzuto, the octogenarian father of reputed mob boss Vito Rizzuto, appeared before Superior Court Justice James Brunton on Tuesday through a video linkup between the Montreal courthouse and the Bordeaux and Montreal detention centres.

Lawyers representing all six said they are ready to proceed with a trial in Quebec Court before a judge alone. Prosecutor Yvan Poulin said the Crown did not object with the request.

Two weeks in September have been set aside for both sides to argue pretrial motions. The case is scheduled to be heard at the special courthouse on Gouin Blvd., which was constructed for criminal trials held against members of the Hells Angels a few years ago. Since then, the courthouse has been used for other trials involving several defendants tied to organized crime.

Project Colisée was a lengthy police investigation into the activities of the Montreal Mafia and resulted in the arrests of more than 90 people in November 2006. Most of the investigation was conducted while Vito Rizzuto was behind bars and awaiting the outcome of a U.S. case where he ultimately pleaded guilty to racketeering for his role in the 1981 murders of three men in New York. He is serving his sentence in the U.S.

The six men who appeared before Brunton on Tuesday were singled out as leaders in the alleged conspiracies probed during Project Colisée, including drug trafficking, extortion and illegal gambling.

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/ne...948c63c&k=99730

John Gotti must be spinning in his grave: The late Gambino crime boss' self-proclaimed "adopted son" is a rat.

Lewis Kasman, a multimillionaire mob wanna-be, has been secretly taping conversations with gangsters since late 2005, federal prosecutors revealed Tuesday.

Kasman could never be a sworn member of organized crime because he was not Italian, but his betrayal of the Mafia is shocking because of the unique access he enjoyed for years in Gotti's inner circle.

He used his contacts with hotel queen Leona Helmsley to plan John A. (Junior) Gotti's wedding at the Helmsley Palace in 1990, was a family spokesman during the elder Gotti's prison cancer battle, and gave the eulogy at his 2002 funeral.

Previously, Kasman gave the Dapper Don a $70,000 no-show job at a sham company in the Garment District and even took a perjury rap by lying to a grand jury about his knowledge of the Mafia.

"He was very close to John and John truly cared about him," said a knowledgeable source. "He occupied a position like a son."

Kasman, 51, is to testify tomorrow in Brooklyn Federal Court at a hearing to determine whether reputed mob lawyer Joseph Corozzo Jr. should be disqualified from representing his father, Joseph Sr., the reputed Gambino consigliere, in his upcoming racketeering trial.

Another source said that some defense lawyers were warned that Kasman was cooperating with the government, but apparently no one told the Corozzos.

He will talk about his relationship with the leaders of the crime family and his knowledge of both Corozzos' criminal activities, prosecutors Joey Lipton and Roger Burlingame said.

Sources said Kasman's decision to flip was based more on feeling disrespected than cutting a deal to stay out of jail. "He thought of himself as a better son to John than his own son," said another source.

"There was an element of trying to clear up all accounts [of past wrongdoing]. But he felt that after John died, things were different and he was just being squeezed for money."

Kasman visited Junior Gotti in prison, but the two were not close, the mob scion's defense lawyer said yesterday.

"I have no concern that John has had any conversations with him [since 2005] or is on a wire," lawyer Charles Carnesi said.

Two years ago, Kasman bought a $1.5 million home in an exclusive gated community in Boca Raton, Fla. His name has appeared occasionally in a Palm Beach Post gossip column, including a sighting backstage with his kids at a Lindsay Lohan concert, and watching Florida Marlins baseball games from a luxury box.

Kasman's mother-in-law professed no knowledge of his undercover work for the feds. "I don't know anything about this," Sandy Kula told the Daily News. "This is the first I'm hearing of it. I don't see him."

Kasman bitterly complained to Ganglandnews.com author Jerry Capeci in 2006 that Junior Gotti would be "destroying his father's legacy" if he testified at his retrial on racketeering charges.

Instead, Kasman will take the witness stand and break a rule that would have earned him a death sentence - even from his mentor and "adopted father."

jmarzulli@nydailynews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime...just_like_.html

Thanks Lilo

Italy has its own version of Mad Cow disease. It hasn't got a name yet, but you could call it Mad Buffalo disease. Buffalo milk, not cow's milk, is used to make Italy's finest mozzarella, the rubbery, and expensive, porcelain-white cheese used in pizza and lasagna. Some of the buffalo milk is contaminated with dioxin and sales of mozzarella are down between 30 and 50 per cent. Japan and South Korea this week banned mozzarella imports.

No one I know is buying buffalo mozzarella, most of which comes from the Campania region around garbage-clogged Naples. The Italians are furious. Not only is mozzarella a dietary staple, it is a symbol of Italy's glorious food culture. Shame on mozzarella translates into shame on Italy.

The Italians blame the Neapolitan Mafia, known as the Camorra, for the mozzarella crisis. They are probably right. The run-off from the Camorra's illegal toxic dumps in Campania has no doubt contaminated the land and the water in some parts of the region. Dioxins are a known carcinogenic (though there are many types of dioxin, ranging from the relatively benign to the outright deadly). Dozens of buffalo herds have been quarantined because of higher-than-normal dioxin levels have been found in the animals' milk. Italy has some 250,000 buffalo whose milk is devoted to mozzarella production.

This being Italy, it's extremely hard for consumers to judge the true health risks. Unbiased opinions are rare and spin is rife. The Italian government today essentially told everyone to relax. Agriculture minister Paulo De Castro slammed what he called “the negative campaign that risks having an important economic and social impact on all products from Campania.”

Note that the minister didn't go so far as to say all buffalo mozzarella is safe. Meanwhile the Italian Confederation of Farmers said the mozzarella panic is not justified because the contamination affects only a tiny portion of the mozzarella farms. But the European Commission is erring on the side of caution. On Tuesday it asked for assurances from the Italian health and food authorities that the mozzarella is safe. It wants an answer by tomorrow.

The tragedy of the mozzarella mess is that everyone saw it coming and almost nothing was done about it. It's been an open secret for years that the Camorra hass been dumping thousands of truck loads of toxic waste on farms (some of which they probably own), in rivers and in caves in Campania. Two years ago Italian author Roberto Saviano wrote a book, called “Gomorra,” about the Camorra's stranglehold on the Neapolitan economy. Several chapters were devoted to the toxic waste racket.

Mr. Saviano said the problem began in earnest in the 1990s, when the Camorra cleverly solved northern Italy's shortage of dumps and incinerator capacity by trucking the waste south and stuffing it into already-packed landfills and unlicensed sites. One cavern was found brimming with the equivalent of 28,000 truckloads of trash.

Because the Mob charges close to market rates to pick up the waste but dumps it for next to nothing, the profits are lavish. "We're talking about six billion euros in two years," Mr. Saviano said in an interview by email in February (he lives under police protection because of the mob death threats against him and rarely gives face-to-face interviews). "Farmlands bought at extremely low prices are transformed into illegal dumping grounds. Putting their own men into the local administration, the Camorra enters the waste business at all levels. … The type of garbage dumped includes everything: barrels of paint, printer toner, human skeletons, cloths used for cleaning cow udders, zinc, arsenic and the residue of industrial chemicals."

The authorities finally caught on in 2002, when the first of the "eco-Mafia" trials began. But the problem persists. In a 2006 study of 196 municipalities in the region, the World Health Organization found "significant excesses" — up to 12 per cent higher than the national average — for stomach, liver, kidney, lung and pancreatic cancer. In the town of Acerra, about 20 kilometres northeast of Naples, sheep are dying because of high levels of toxicity found in the land. Many thousands of buffalo have been slaughtered.

In spite of the effort by the mozzarella makers and the government to remove some of the fear factor, the truth is the dioxin contamination could be widespread in Campania, thanks to the toxic dumps. If so the mozzarella crisis will take months, perhaps years, go go away. Fancy pizza with cheddar instead?

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/s...Story/WBwreguly

Police fear a Mafia war is about to break out after a mobster was gunned down in a revenge hit yesterday.

Giuseppe Cavallo, 27, was shot in his car, leaving his wife badly hurt, less than 48 hours after rival gangster Luca Megna, 37, was killed nearby in southern Italy.

Both were members of of the N'Drangheta in Calabria, said to be even more bloodthirsty than the Sicilian Mafia

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/...89520-20362920/

The murder of a man in southern Italy has fuelled concern about an escalation of a blood feud among the Calabrian mafia or 'Ndrangheta.
Police say the victim, Francesco Capicchiano, 33, was carrying a pistol but did not even have time to draw it as two gunmen opened fire.

It was the third mafia murder in the Crotone area in just five days.

The 'Ndrangheta, has overtaken Sicily's Cosa Nostra as the richest and most fearsome of the Italian mafia.

It is characterised by close blood ties and a global reach. Long under-estimated it shot to international attention after last August's massacre of six young Italian men outside a pizzeria in Duisburg, Germany.

That high profile massacre was part of a faida, or feud, that had started in 1991, and which had often featured attacks on religious holidays.

Early funeral

Before Francesco Capicchiano's murder on Thursday, Luca Megna was shot dead as he drove his wife and daughter through Crotone on Easter Saturday, 22 March.

This region looks more and more like Iraq, where people are killed in broad daylight



He died instantly, his wife was injured and a bullet in the head of his five-year-old daughter has left her in a coma.

In true mafia style, the revenge attack mirrored the original murder. The family of Giuseppe Cavallo, 37, faced a hail of bullets as they travelled across town. The two-year-old daughter was miraculously unhurt.

In a sign of just how worried they are about further violence, local security forces ordered that Megna's funeral on Thursday be held at 0600, with no funeral procession and only the closest family present.

Teachers at a middle school attended by many children of the two rival clans all phoned in sick on Thursday - fearful for the safety of their pupils and themselves.

The headmaster appealed to the local police chief and administrators to intervene to ensure the safety of students and teachers alike.

Investigators believe the three murders are part of a clan war for control of the drug trade and extortion in Crotone. But they believe other huge business interests may have triggered the conflict.

Al-Qaeda comparison

The anti-mafia commission report points to the 'Ndrangheta's interest in the Europaradiso project to be built within a nature reserve near Crotone - it would be one of the biggest tourist centres in the Mediterranean with 120,000 beds and work for 4,000 people.


'Ndrangheta chief Pasquale Condello was arrested in February

The parliamentary anti-mafia committee, this year dedicated a specific report to the 'Ndrangheta, which it likens to al-Qaeda because of its tentacular structure and lack of hierarchy.

Over the decades, the crime syndicate was able to exploit the presence of Calabrian immigrants in all corners of the globe, from Colombia to Canada, from Australia to Germany.

The president of the parliamentary anti-mafia committee, Francesco Forgione, who is running in Calabria for a Senate seat in the upcoming general election, said the upsurge in violence in Crotone "puts at risk the serenity of this electoral campaign".

Veteran politician Giacomo Mancini compared the situation to a war zone.

"They promised to turn Calabria inside out and instead this region looks more and more like Iraq, where people are killed in broad daylight with pump shotguns fired against cars," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7317897.stm

Boy (14) still held over Limerick shooting

A 14-year-old boy is still being held by gardaí investigating a shooting in the St Mary's Park area of Limerick earlier this week.

The shooting took place at 6.15am on Wednesday when a shot was fired at a house on St Munchin's Street. The house was occupied, but nobody was injured.

There was a similar attack on another house in the same estate on Sunday morning.

Two teenagers were seen running from the scene of the shootings, and a sawn-off shotgun was found by gardaí nearby.

An 18-year-old youth and the 14-year-old were arrested at 10am. The older youth has been freed.

The 14-year-old had been arrested and released by gardaí just hours before the gun attack after he was stopped driving a car near the estate while wearing a bulletproof vest.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/2008/0404/breaking9.htm

The deportation of former Mafia boss Rosario Gambino from the United States to Italy has been delayed, sources told Adnkronos.

The 65-year-old Gambino,(photo) cousin of Carlo Gambino, boss of the Gambino crime family, has been sought by Italian authorities since 2001, when a request for extradition was originally denied by US judges.

Eleven attempts for his extradition were rejected by US authorities on the grounds that a law known as '41-bis' could be result in Gambino being tortured in Italy.

The '41-bis' article of the Italian penitentiary act gives power to the minister of justice to suspend prison regulations, and can include a ban on association with other prisoners, a ban on receiving parcels and visits by family members among others.

Since Gambino is not a US citizen, a US judge signed the deportation order on Tuesday for Gambino to return to his native Italy after completing a 22-year jail term for drug trafficking charges.

He has since been kept in an immigration detention centre.

Gambino built up a massive illicit drugs trade between American and fellow mobsters in Italy during the late 70s .

Reportedly, Gambino and his two brothers set up a pizzeria known as Father and Son which the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claimed was used as a front to launder money and deliver drugs.

Gambino is also believed to have had ties with Michele Sindona, a corrupt international banker with numerous ties to the Mafia who was used by the Mob to launder billions in drug money in late the 70s and early 80s.

Sindona, was poisoned in jail in 1986 while serving a life sentence for the murder of lawyer Giorgio Ambrosoli.

It is alleged that in 2001, Roger Clinton, half-brother of the then president Bill Clinton had sought to free Rosario Gambino with a presidential pardon, after having allegedly received 50,000 dollars among other gifts by the Gambino family.

The pardon was never issued by Bill Clinton.



http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.2035492351

reputed Gambino crime family associate from the Oakwood section of Staten Island helped peddle more than a ton of pot, raking in millions of dollars for an organization known as "Cartoon Network."

But the prison sentence a federal judge hit Frank Paul Adamita with today was no joke.

Senior District Judge Leonard D. Wexler sentenced Adamita to 65 months or five years and five months, behind bars. The proceeding was held on Long Island in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Adamita's lawyer, Charles F. Carnesi, could not immediately be reached today for comment; however, he previously denied any link between his client and organized crime.

Federal prosecutors said Adamita, 34, was a wholesale distributor for the organization, and helped grow some of the pot in a Brooklyn apartment, while peddling it mainly on Long Island. He even considered setting up a "grow house" in Graniteville in 2006 with an associate to hydroponically cultivate the illegal cash crop.

The defendant pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to distribute and possess marijuana. He remains free on $1 million bond and is to surrender May 30 to begin his sentence.

Prosecutors allege that Adamita's father, Emanuele Adamita, also was a member of the Gambinos and supervised the importation and distribution of multiple kilos of heroin in the "Pizza Connection" case of two decades ago. The crooks allegedly laundered the proceeds through pizza parlors used as fronts. The elder Adamita was deported to Sicily after completing a 10-year federal sentence in 1998.

Cartoon Network moved more than 1,000 kilograms -- more than 2,200 pounds -- of marijuana while in business between January 2000 and October 2006, according to the office of the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The organization is not affiliated with the TV network of the same name.

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/04/reputed_mobster_from_staten_is.html

Peter Gotti is trying to persuade a judge to trim his prison term, saying his health has declined since he has been behind bars.

The older brother of the late mob boss John Gotti is suffering from a list of ailments ranging from gout to glaucoma, his lawyer told a judge Thursday. Attorney Joseph A. Bondy asked that his client's 9 1/2-year sentence in a Brooklyn racketeering case be reduced to the five years he has already served.

"He's been through enough," Bondy said.

Judge Frederic Block did not immediately rule on the request.

Peter Gotti, 68, became the acting boss of the Gambino organized crime family in 1997, after his elder brother went to prison and his nephew, John "Junior" Gotti, was beset by legal woes, authorities have said.

He was convicted in April 2004 of racketeering, conspiracy and money laundering linked to the Gambinos' domination of the Brooklyn waterfront. A federal appeals court upheld the conviction in 2006 but said he might be entitled to a lesser sentence.

Should he get one, Gotti still would face a 25-year sentence for ordering a failed hit on mob informant Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, the key prosecution witness in the racketeering case that sent John Gotti to prison for life

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/11/america/NA-GEN-US-Peter-Gotti.php

GoodFellas was the definitive mafia film - and it is the story of one man, Henry Hill, one of the only survivors of a ruthless gang of robbers and killers.

Hill walked the streets of New York as a king - an associate of the Lucchese crime family. He stole big, he spent big and took vast quantities of drugs.

Then he got caught and spent 30 years in the witness protection programme, telling the police all they needed to know to put his mafia bosses behind bars.

"I couldn't walk around this neighbourhood ten years ago," he says standing, smoking outside Junior's diner in Long Island City. "There'd be bullets flying all over the place."

His morning started with fried calamari washed down with a glass of wine and a shot of whiskey. But it was not the Dutch courage that meant he dared to visit his old haunting grounds on this murky spring day.

"I'm old enough to die, just as long as they do it quickly," he says, pointing to his forehead.

Hill is a very different looking man from the one shown on the big screen. He is short, grey-haired, with lines on his face.

A cigarette barely leaves his hand. The same goes for a bottle of beer.

After Junior's, it was on to his mistress's house. She was called Janice Rossi in the film, Linda in real life, and Hill confirms the famous scene where his wife, Karen, is madly pressing apartment buzzers and screaming that Janice is a "whore".

But he says in reality he was in the apartment too and had to climb down the drainpipe to get out and reach home before Karen returned.

Hill says: "If you can't love two people at once, there's something wrong with you."

I point out that his wife probably did not see it that way. "Obviously she didn't," says Hill.

After a short interlude where he tries to persuade a traffic warden not to give us a ticket - "Sistergirl, please," he says - we are off to Robert's Lounge.

The club was owned by Jimmy Burke (Robert de Niro's character in the film) and was the scene of Spider's (played by Michael Imperioli) death.

"Spider was killed in the basement," Hill says. He describes the dark room filling up with smoke and the deafening echo of bullets in the tiny space.

He says Spider was buried in the basement along with several others killed there or nearby over the years. With a grim look he says: "This is a graveyard."

'Bust some heads'

GoodFellas contained several scenes of visceral, shocking violence and it was not an exaggeration.

Joe Coffey became a policeman because the mafia shot his dad. It happened when he was eight and they did it right in front of him.

"GoodFellas is probably the best mafia movie as far as showing them for what they really are," he says today.

"The Godfather, Casino, they show them as sort of folk heroes. GoodFellas pins them down to exactly what they are - street thugs."
Hill says he never killed anyone although he did ''bust some heads", and he admits he does not know whether his victims lived or died.

He smiles as he talks of how much he stole, though.

"We stole anything we could sell," he says, as we pass a Bulova watch factory.

He claims they used to stake out the trucks as they brought shipments in and then hold up and pay off the drivers. The watches could then be sold on the black market.

His most famous crime was the Lufthansa robbery of 1978 when a reported $5m (£2.5m) was taken from a vault at New York's John F Kennedy International Airport.

Pasta sauce

Hill says the police told him more than $100m (£50m) had gone through his hands, although he himself has no idea how much he stole and spent.

He knows where it went though: "Slow horses, drugs and rock and roll."

Now he makes his money selling his story. He is promoting a new Sky Movies mafia season, and has written several books (including a cookbook - real spaghetti and marinara sauce, not egg noodles and ketchup).

He adds that he made half a million dollars advising on GoodFellas.

I ask him how he thought the victims of his crimes would feel knowing about that.

He takes a drag of his cigarette and replies: "Do you know something? I don't give a heck what those people think, I'm doing the right thing now."

Henry Hill was speaking to Heather Alexander for BBC News 24's E24 programme.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7319520.stm

I, for one, am really f'n tired of Henry Hill and his beating this dead horse, over and over, just to squeeze a few bucks out of a second rate beat writer.

He's a lowlife, junkie scumbag. Not just because he's a rat, but because at 65 years old he hasn't learned a damned thing. I hope he lives another twenty years, but only as a penniless, junkie scumbag.

Phew! How was that for a rant?

Pizzaboy i couldnt agree more,i have no time what so ever for Hill he has had so many chances to make a life for himself yet hasnt.

The late John Gotti thought he was a tough guy, but he was a shy pussycat when it came to women and sex, according to the gangster's old confidant.

Lewis Kasman, the self-proclaimed "adopted son" of the Gambino crime boss, said Gotti -- despite the rumors of affairs and an out-of-wedlock child -- rebuffed women who threw themselves at him.

Now a cooperating witness for the federal government, Kasman taped Gotti's widow Victoria in April 2007 as she was recuperating from the effects of two strokes. For more than an hour, Kasman talked to Gotti's widow, whose voice was weak, about their children and various intrigues surrounding supposed efforts by the dead mobster's brothers to get his money.

Gotti died in June 2002 at a federal prison hospital in Missouri of neck cancer while serving a life sentence. After a $50,000 funeral, Gotti was buried in a crypt at St. John's Cemetery in Middle Village with his coffin head-to-head with that of his son Frank, who died at age 12.

On the recording, a copy of which was made available to a reporter, Kasman told Victoria Gotti that her spouse wasn't a "hang from the chandelier guy" when it came to sex.

"I was with him on Sundays ... I'd have known if he was in an apartment -- -- -- ," said Kasman.

"First of all, your husband was very shy, he would have me go and set it up," Kasman told Victoria Gotti.

"I'm not saying broads didn't come up to him and say 'Oh, Mr. Gotti!, Oh John, Oh John' -- that went on, you know that went on," said Kasman. "He would have been a sex maniac if half of those stories were true."

Kasman did his best to shoot down a rumor that Gotti might have had an affair with Lisa Gastineau, the former wife of ex-Jet defensive end Mark Gastineau.

"We would go out to dinner," said Kasman dismissively, adding that Gastineau had a different boyfriend.

Kasman, formerly of Woodbury, also denied the story that Gotti fathered a love child with the stepdaughter of the late mobster Aniello Dellacroce.

Kasman's taping stunned Gotti's immediate family when its existence was revealed in connection with a large roundup of reputed Gambino crime family members and associates.

Kasman related to Gotti's wife how much the mobster loved and respected her.

"I don't want you to have any of this ––– in your head, OK? He loved you, he cared for you," Kasman said.

"I don't have any doubt about that," Victoria responded.

Victoria Gotti wouldn't comment yesterday. Her daughter Angel said Tuesday the family was leery of many things Kasman told them, especially about money.

"He would tell each one of us something different," said Angel Gotti.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nymob0417,0,4671514.story

The reputed leader of the Gambino crime family may be the Rodney Dangerfield of Mafia bosses.

John (Jackie Nose) D'Amico, 73, is apparently broke and his lawyer wants out of the case.

"He's been unable in any manner at all to meet any financial obligations to me," lawyer Robert Blossner said as politely as possible yesterday in Brooklyn Federal Court.

If being called a deadbeat in public wasn't bad enough, Blossner also said D'Amico's relatives had to wait four hours to visit him recently because other Gambino kin were ahead of them at the lockup in Queens.

D'Amico could qualify for a government-appointed lawyer, Blossner told Judge Jack Weinstein, who reserved decision on releasing the lawyer from his defense duty just yet.

All this disrespect suggests D'Amico hasn't changed much since he was anointed acting boss two years ago, nor has the way others view him changed.

"Everybody liked him, but he was no money earner," said a law enforcement source, who said it's entirely plausible D'Amico is penniless. "He's always been a degenerate gambler without a pot to p--s in," the source said.

If D'Amico, charged with racketeering and extortion, asks taxpayers to pick up his legal tab, prosecutors will closely examine the suburban New Jersey home where his wife lives and his income from a job at a bottled water company.

Fellow Gambinos often called D'Amico a "broke-ster," which is only slightly less insulting than being called a rat, the source recalled.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/broo...ig_john_da.html

These mob types are always degenerate gamblers are'nt they?

It sounds like the plot from a movie: A New York mob family becomes dissatisfied with the money flowing from a "crew" in a smaller New England city. Disgruntled members resort to murder so they can take control of the crew.

more stories like thisBut prosecutors say the story that unfolded in Springfield in 2003 was all too real.

Frankie A. Roche, 35, of Westfield pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to murdering Adolfo "Al" Bruno as part of an attempt to take over the Springfield crew, prosecutors said yesterday.

In a statement of charges filed with Roche's plea agreement, prosecutors described the conflict within the mob's Genovese crime family that led to the murder.

"Members of the Genovese LCN [La Cosa Nostra] family hierarchy in New York became upset with Adolfo Bruno because he was not sending sufficient tribute payments to New York," prosecutors said in the statement. "Thereafter, a member of the Springfield Crew sought authority from the hierarchy of the Genovese LCN family in New York, pursuant to the rules of La Cosa Nostra, to murder Adolfo Bruno."

Roche and other members of the crew, who weren't named in the court papers, acted to "usurp control" from Bruno in order to increase the income from racketeering for themselves and the Mafia family in New York, prosecutors said.

Roche, a mob "associate," was allegedly paid $10,000 to commit the murder. He could have faced the death penalty. But in exchange for his plea to a charge of murder in aid of racketeering, prosecutors will recommend he receive a life sentence, the plea agreement said.

Roche has also agreed to cooperate fully with law enforcement, and if he gives them "substantial assistance," his sentence could be reduced further, according to court documents.

Federal and state officials said Roche's cooperation would be critical in their ongoing investigation into Bruno's death and other mob activities. "We've got a pretty broad lens in terms of this investigation," US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said.

Warren T. Bamford, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, said the mob is still a major concern throughout Massachusetts.

"I still think sometimes there is a misconception that the LCN has gone away, but that's incorrect both in Western Massachusetts and Eastern Massachusetts," Bamford said. "There are still organizations in existence, crews, groups that are still active and thriving . . . and it's important for us to go after them."

Bamford said the turmoil and power struggle in the Genovese family is not uncommon within the mob. "It kind of represents how they do business, how they act, and how they settle differences," Bamford said.

Assistant US Attorney Todd E. Newhouse said Roche admitted as part of his plea that on Nov. 23, 2003, he approached Bruno, 57, in the parking lot of a Springfield social club, exchanged greetings, then shot him six times with a .45-caliber handgun before fleeing.

Roche's lawyer did not immediately return a message seeking comment
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/18/mob_associate_admits_to_springfield_murder/